Brilliant and beautiful, diamonds are destined for more than just jewelry

Peer through the small window of one of Apollo Diamond's canister-like reactors, and it might seem as if you're staring at something from out of this world. The inside of the cramped chamber is bathed in a magenta glow more befitting a Los Angeles nightclub than a science lab. Evenly arrayed on a small plate at the center of this colorful haze are what looks like 16 lozenges burning with an even deeper pink hue.

As unlikely as it seems, each of those small pinkish disks is a diamond, growing from a tiny seed crystal under conditions carefully created and monitored...